Crossroads of peoples and cultures, Sicily is an ancient and consolidated culinary melting pot. Marianopoli is no exception, which due to its position finds ideas and legacies from many local Sicilian traditions. All this translates into exquisite dishes, some of which we want to offer you here.
Bucatini with broccoli
Al cauliflower boiled and pureed, add lightly browned pine nuts. Pomodoro, oil, onion and anchovies they become a tasty sauce. Added the cauliflower and seasoned, the mixture goes to season the pasta cooked al dente, to be enjoyed piping hot.
Busiati with pork ragout
A great pork ragout, cooked strictly in slow cooking with only local ingredients, goes to season the "busiati”: fresh pasta obtained with knitting needles, often ancient. For better cooking the pasta must be pierced. Combine it all and you have a memorable treat.
Pumpkin Sweet & Sour
Pumpkin slices, fried naturally. Once the excess oil has been removed, they are salted after cooking. Fried garlic slices welcome white vinegar e cup sugar: once the liquid has evaporated, the pumpkin slices return to the pan to flavor with the garlic. Finally, a chopped mint above, and wait for it to cool before enjoying it!
Eggplant caponata
A Sicilian classic, which you will also find in Marianopoli in all its flavors and aromas.
È a fried dish of various vegetables, seasoned with a sweet and sour sauce of tomato, celery, onions, olives and capers.
Originally a fish dish (the Sicilian "capone", i.e. dolphin fish), with the replacement of the fish with aubergines it became tasty poor dish of land.
Stuffed leg of lamb
Pastoralism bears excellent fruit in Marianopoli: in addition to ricotta cheese e tuma, protagonists of the festival at the beginning of January, the meats are also delicious and excellently prepared.
Due legs of lamb they are sewn together, and flavored with bacon, mushrooms and fennel. Sautéed in a pan with butter, aromatic herbs, garlic, nutmeg, as well as salt and pepper, they are then enriched with "muddica”, i.e. breadcrumbs. Finally, in the oven with the potatoes and White wine, to achieve adequate cooking, in a riot of olfactory and gustatory hints.
“Sasizza frijuta”
Fried sausage, a delight not to be missed. An entire “wheel” of pork sausage, covered with strong local red wine, until everything evaporates. At that point, the leaking fat will "fry" the sausage, which will arrive there crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with an explosion of aromas and flavours. Indispensable.
Sicilian cassata
Finally, the dessert. And if Marianopoli's ricotta is proverbial, so is the cassata that is produced. Easter cake that archives the sacrifices of Lent, is characterized by baroque decorations but with very ancient origins: it is to the Arabs, who introduced it into Sicily cup sugar, that we owe this delight. The name actually comes from “quas'at”, that is, a large, round bowl. Each pastry chef has his secrets, and each local variant has its identity: to enjoy an excellent cassata, all you have to do is get to Marianopoli.
